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Sense of smell is deeply connected with cognitive functionCOVID-19 knocks out smell and taste so often and so abruptly that it can serve as an early warning of virus surges. Now, according to researchers from the Alzheimer's Association International Conference, persistent anosmia 3 to 6 months after SARS-CoV-2 infection best predicted which older adults from the Andes mountains of Argentina had cognitive impairment. Only longer-term follow-up will show if these cognitive losses resolve or progress as dementia. We should be unsettled that other researchers at the same meeting found that elderly patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who had toxic-metabolic encephalopathy also...

Loss of smell or taste, or both, is common in COVID-19 infected patients, particularly in patients with mild symptoms. Although research has focused on the causes underlying lung infections in COVID-19 patients, the causes of neurological symptoms have remained a mystery.Researchers have now explained the mechanisms involved in the loss of smell (anosmia) in patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 at different stages of the disease, in an article published in Science Translational Medicine, “COVID-19-related anosmia is associated with viral persistence and inflammation in human olfactory epithelium and brain infection in hamsters.”Using noninvasive nasal brush sampling, scientists at the Institut Pasteur, CNRS,...

A DCN review of scientific literature and anecdotal advice from scholars of taste and smell shows dozens of examples of coffee being used as the barometer for a kind of sniff-test for COVID-19, in part for its distinct smell and also for its availability in homes throughout the world.The CDC now lists the loss of smell, known as anosmia, as one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19, with most recent studies indicating that about 50% to as much as 80% of people testing positive for the virus have suffered from anosmia.